


Forget-me-not

by Penrose_Quinn



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: A take on the crueler side of soul mates, Alternate Realities, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Death, Drabble Collection, F/M, Fem!Blue-eyed Kurapika, Nonlinear Events, Slightly Experimental Chain Pair, Tragedy, or Reincarnations - your pick
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 13:28:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18779203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penrose_Quinn/pseuds/Penrose_Quinn
Summary: Bluer than the poignant flowers, the ancient sea, within those eyes—what bleeds more than memory lost?





	1. Lethe

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Mature and dark themes. Drowning. Implications of suicide. Sexual implications; semi-explicit.

 

> The end is the beginning of everything and nothing, in the forgotten River that sprung from Death's tears.

 

* * *

 

 _From the other side of the river, he is soaked in blue. Blue that calms, blue that loves—blue which is impassive and incomplete, as it seeps through his very bones._  
_He stands among the rocks, weathering and wavering in his futile search—and what exactly is he searching for? It is this mystery that lures him to those depths and the unfathomed pull that plunges him further into seeking this indefinable desire of_ something _. Something, he believes, is so close, lapping against his knees, licking on his sleeves. Drawn, drowned, driven—he dives down into the deep dark chasm of what is almost like the sea, breathless and beautiful beneath._  
_But it is lacking—_ what, really?  
_His eyes are blurring, and in that instant, he thinks he is going blind by the blueness of it all. It is when he rises up in bubbling breaths and hurting nostrils that he realizes his reflection is almost unidentifiable, warping further and further into a formless mold of a man. A grim smile ripples on his lips. If Narcissus desires for himself, he desires for his soul. In the water is his truth._  
_So, he tries again, and alas, he fails (in his damnation)._  
_Because even if the moon ascends high, he still feels the red sun spill from his fingers, and as he grasps for it through his empty palms, the running stream laments in his despair. He waits for the tide until the endless blue comes close to caress him from his neck, sinking him layer upon layer._  
_Drowning, however, feels far more tragic when the pain (from the water inside his lungs) dulls in comparison when he is breathing in the surface._

 

* * *

 

 _From the other side of the river, she is submersed in deep cerulean, painted in its colors, drowned in delight._  
_Until her lungs crave for oxygen and she parts from these depths before she perishes—and when she does, the air knocks her from her senses, and she struggles in this awareness. As she wanders (wondering if there are heavy chains on her feet, on her heart), she comes to a realization that she treads without destination, in endless streams and circles._  
_A ripple forms beneath her, and in her bemusement, she questions her very likeness shone on the river. And then she questions herself. She attempts to grasp for her reflection, until her colors almost become colorless, almost become blue, but the water insists on sliding over her palms, and from her fingertips trickle drops of_ I am I am I am _._  
_Dribbling down her dry tongue, the water tastes of a solution of cold iron and_ something _. Something, she thinks, which makes her tremble, terrified, and ignites a stirring within to act in desperation. To break free from the chains of something—_ something _that reaches, binds her to its detestable fate, but even the tap tap of the river almost sounds like clattering metal. From the bottom of her gut, she decides to run._  
_So, she tries, and alas, she fails (in her damnation)._  
_Because even if the sun descends to the horizon, the pale moon mocks her from its threshold through its silvery spidery fingers, and as she wades for escape beneath those unfathomable depths, the water embraces her in its kindness._ Come _, it beckons in gentle waves that promise of relief. So she does, until her tears turn to pearls and her smothered breaths to old dreams._  
_Engulfed whole, she is cradled by a river that is as vast as the ancient sea._

 

* * *

 

" _One day, we'll meet again,"_  echoes a voice from the shores, swish-swish, _". . . again . . . again . . ."_

 

* * *

 

> It all comes to full circle when the water becomes their graves. In this life, no one remembers.


	2. Wedlock

Chrollo follows the curve of her pale lips shape into words: "Promise me," Kurapika whispers in feeble forced tones. "We'll be together."

 _Together_ , the word echoes like a curse in the dark of the night. Chrollo almost laughs in a manner that can be likened to a sob.

_To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better._

Born alone in the world and separate of its confines, they tread the earth with invisible tethers on their ankles in a bond that can never be broken. Circumstance dictates them to be in a union; inevitably consummated in each life cycle, with the loveliest loveless lies.

Love is their delusion, however.

_For worse._

"Together," Chrollo repeats but he doesn't want this. So does she. He keeps up to their pretenses. "Always."

Too weak to oppose their fate, too worn to separate, they surrender to destiny with their hands wrung onto each other's necks.

In a tired, tired voice, Kurapika asks, "Forever?"

In a tired, tired smile, Chrollo tells her, "Forever."

_Until death do us part._


	3. Water Grave

In this lifetime, they are in love of each other’s spite.

She is a girl from the far coasts, without a home. He is a man of the seas, without direction.

Their history is traced from Lukso, _No Man’s Land_ , mapped crimson and black by the sea. Rumor has it that a great fire has engulfed the island whole. The tales span across far leaps in years and oceans; some claim red-eyed sirens wailed, others men pillaged, few wars are fought, though no one truly knows. The deep waters have long since cleansed the blood from the shores—and the tiny footprints against the sand.

The arrival of ash-black sails brings forth an omen. Fear carves deep in a small port town, of cutthroats and ruthless plunderers. 

Here, they meet again through chance and stolen glances, and it hurtles forth like a great tsunami.

She remembers him for his sins. He forgets her from his crimes.

She forgets her sailor husband. He remembers the fishwife.

 _Pirate_ , she hisses with a knife poised on his throat. _Siren_ , he scoffs with a hand on her wrist.

For a heartbeat, there is a pulse of contempt.

She wants more—the image of him in brutal red. He wants more—the profile of her in broken glory.

Blood is drawn from pale translucent skin; a pad of a thumb runs on a web of delicate blue veins. The tempest comes from a lash of the tongue. Their fray is as livid as the storm because what makes up for cutting winds are the nails on her fingers that rends his flesh weeping and for the harsh rain are the hands on her baring shoulders that color them in purple-blue.

However she is sickeningly taken by the expanse of his chest. He is offensively drawn by the sweet roundness of her breasts.

This is but a spur of passion, they realize. Lust burns for a night, but hatred burns tenfold in a thousand years.

She wants to lick the clotting scar from his abdomen. He wants to taste the slick heat between her legs.

They remain belligerent in their violent dance.

Because there is only fight and fury and fire.

She pushes him from the cliffs. He pulls her down with him.

Hereupon they tumble, and thrash, and throttle till their very vice-grips are taut from their mouths.

She kisses the breath from his lips. He kisses the salt from her tongue.

They both bite, they both smother—there is no kindness, in the depths of their infinite souls.

Hell becomes a home of crashing waves.

Deep within the heart of the ocean, the whale’s song is their requiem.


	4. Phantom

The first time they meet, the world is reborn in rain.

At the time, Kurapika reminisces that there are ringed ripples on the pavement with puddles as wide and immense as an ocean; in this quiet place, they wink at her in silvery flecks of light behind the backdrop of an unromantic Monday morning, skies roiling with ashen clouds that seek to rinse the earth. There is a bridge far beyond the path that gleams like a silver rod, even though it has been old and rusting up close.

Though the figure of a man on that bridge draws her attention, as he clings on the edge of the railings, like a spider barely dangling on a convoluted web. And thus, it begins here, of all places. Kurapika confronts him for a second or two, and her reality appears to bend around his presence. He seems too surreal to be true, too ethereal to be human—and some part of her wishes to touch him, because despite their proximity, he remains so distant in the planes of existence.

He is the first to speak, however. "Have I met you before?"

Kurapika shakes her head. "I don't think so."

"You look familiar."

"You're not."

_Who are you?_

"I'm no one," he tells her, as if he has heard her thoughts—only for her to realize that she has said them aloud. He smiles, but there are shadows under his eyes, like he's seen so much terror in his nights. But he is so calm, so closed, and just as cold.

"Why are you here?" Kurapika asks not unkindly, as her eyes carves his likeness in her mind.

"Why are  _you_?"

Kurapika doesn't answer.

 

* * *

 

They meet a second time, and then a third, a fourth—his presence almost feels like limbo, the tail-end of an enduring dream.

 _Or a memory_ , Kurapika corrects.

"You look familiar," he always says that to her though he never elaborates further. He steals a glance at her face. "I think it's your eyes."

"My eyes?" Kurapika echoes back in disbelief.

"Your eyes," he affirms in a voice so naturally smooth and unnaturally sentimental. "I don't believe I've seen quite like them before."

Kurapika scoffs at that. "If you hadn't, then it isn't familiar."

His smile becomes a conundrum, the riddle of one's deepest, darkest secret.

"If it wasn't familiar, I wouldn't have remembered."

 

* * *

 

"The thought of suicide is a great consolation," he says in measured tones, "by means of it one gets through many a dark night."

Her brows furrow in recognition. "Nietzsche?"

"Yes," he answers. "You've read his works?"

"A few selected ones," and then in a careful voice, Kurapika whispers: "we can talk more about it, if you're at the other side of the railing."

He sighs under his breath. "I believe it's quite too late for that."

Kurapika just doesn't understand.

 

* * *

 

"Will you always be here?"

"I don't have quite a choice in that matter."

Kurapika musters the courage to ask: "What do you mean?"

He stares at the great lake under his feet. "You should know it by now . . ."

 

* * *

 

Kurapika finds a familiar portrait from the daily obituaries. In the morning, she remembers him in resentful tears.


	5. Washy Ramblings (i)

Cleanse the mind, purge the soul, deep, deep within this watery oblivion.  
You and I, washed ashore—and adrift, oceans apart, once again,  
and swallowed by the tide, we wear smiles just as deep and sunken beneath.  
There is a reflection that wades, reaching, rippling, to me,  
with lips like salt, like air, and I taste, breathe, until your feel becomes memory.   
From the other shore, call forth my name—I await for yours.  
Hands clutched close to hearts, we drown to the bottom  
as the shroud of waves roll over us and we wear asunder  
and we ache, ache, ache.  
However in these depths, the rhythm of the river pulse in our hearts, inseparably,  
and rising like the sea foam, crashing together, melting apart,  
pure and shapeless once more—we meet again, anew.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Blanket Disclaimer: I do not own Hunter x Hunter.


End file.
